It is very common for extruded materials to be taken up on spindle reels for shipment. The extruded materials may include polymer materials such as rubbers or plastics and the like or other materials such as rope, cable, or leather and the like. Indeed, virtually any part capable of uptake on a reel and capable of being cut could be employed. A common winding assembly is a turret winding assembly such as that generally shown in FIG. 1. The turret winding assembly is generally designated by the numeral 10 and includes a main housing structure 11, which carries a first spindle 12 and a second spindle 14 on a rotating turret 16. The first and second spindles 12, 14 carry respective first and second reels 18, 20, which serve to gather a part P. In FIG. 1, the part P has been wound onto reel 18, and the turret 16 has been rotated to advance reel 20 into position for cutting part P in order to permit it to be loaded onto reel 20, while reel 18 is in position for removal. More particularly, a part P is secured to a reel in the position of reel 20, and that reel is rotated to accumulate the part P. Once that reel is full, the turret 16 is rotated in the direction of arrow A to place the full reel on the left, while placing an empty reel on the right, in position to receive a cut end of the part P and continue the part accumulating process. The full reel is removed at the left position and replaced with an empty reel on the spindle 12.
In the position shown in FIG. 1, reel 18 is full, and has been rotated from the position shown occupied by reel 20 to its current position. The part P is still one continuous part wound on reel 18 and extending back through a part guide 22 and back to the part source (not shown). The part P extends through a gripper 24 associated with the spindle 14, and the part P is gripped thereby. Thereafter, a cutter 26 is operated to cut the part P, for example by a blade 30 advanced towards the part P. Thus, the new free end of part P is gripped by the gripper 24 associated with reel 20, while the length of part P wound on reel 18 is disconnected from the part source and therefore can be removed and replaced with an empty reel. With the part gripped by gripper 24, the reel 20 can be rotated in the direction of spindle 14, thus taking additional length of part P onto reel 20. Once spindle 20 is full, turret 16 can again be rotated in the direction of arrow A, bringing the now empty reel 18 into position below the cutter. At this position, the associated gripper 28 would grab the part P to then associate the new free end of the part P with the reel 18. It should be appreciated that the cutting of the part P gathered on the reels may be timed by a controller C, suitably programmed to grip, cut, rotate spindles and rotate the turret, as necessary for the take-up of the part P.
While such turret winders are somewhat effective, and are beneficially employed in the art, the turret itself is an unnecessary and overly complex element of the design. The turret winder takes up a significant amount of floor space in relation to the two reels that it carries for accumulating the winding part. Thus, the present invention provides a simpler non-turret winder design, which can provide multiple reels in a given floor space footprint.